This week has been a non-stop cram session for Saints rookie cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, who squeezed in three final exams and three final papers to finish school at Ohio State a week early.

He said he was up all night studying on Thursday before he finished his last test on Friday. Then he traded in his textbooks for his playbook and boarded a flight to New Orleans.

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneMalcolm Jenkins has had an interesting week. He stayed up most of Thursday studying for finals at Ohio State, took his last test Friday and then flew in to work out with his Saints teammates on Saturday.

"I was watching some film on the plane," said Jenkins, who arrived around 9:30 p.m. "As soon as I got to the hotel, I got some water and just got in the playbook some more before I took a nap. So I'm kind of low on sleep right now."

The frantic pace was worth it for the Saints' first-round draft pick, who put an exclamation point on his day by intercepting a pass during the afternoon session.

Eventually, Jenkins will catch up on his rest. In the meantime, he'll have a chance to get caught up with his new teammates.

After missing the past month of team activities because of an NFL rule that requires rookies to wait until their semester ends, he was able to hit the field for the final two days of minicamp practices and this next week of organized team activities.

"The sooner I could get down here, the more I could learn," said Jenkins, who arranged the expedited schedule with all of his professors and school advisors. "And now I'm just all out."

Jenkins worked with the third-string defense in the morning, then ran with the second team in the afternoon.

He received a rousing ovation from the 3,000 fans in attendance when he lined up for his first set of one-on-one drills against the receivers. Then he got his real welcome-to-the-NFL moment when receiver D'Juan Woods burned him deep down the field on his first pass coverage.

He seemed to do just fine after that in both individual and team drills, occasionally showing off his physical style by pressing receivers at the line of scrimmage and tipping two balls away during the morning session, one of which should have been picked off by rookie safety Chip Vaughn.

Then came the highlight of his day in afternoon team drills, when he reeled in a Mark Brunell pass that bounced off of intended receiver Darian Barnes.

"Everybody's learning it just like me," said Jenkins of the new defense being installed by first-year coordinator Gregg Williams. "I know the coaches aren't expecting me to automatically just grasp the whole playbook and come in here and dominate right off the bat. I have a little bit of a learning curve, and all I can do is just do my best and learn as fast as I can."

Saints Coach Sean Payton said one of Jenkins' strengths is that he's a smart player, and that he seems to have a good grasp of what he's supposed to be doing on the field.

Veteran teammates who met Jenkins for the first time Saturday also said they were impressed by the way he jumped right into the action.

"Well, the first impression when you look at him is, 'Man, that's a pretty big cornerback right there,'¤" said cornerback Randall Gay of the 6-foot, 204-pound rookie, who was considered a cornerback/safety "tweener" by many scouts heading into the draft. "If he's that big and can move like a cornerback, then he has some skills. And you see he went right out there in practice, you can tell he's been in his playbook. He wants to be here."

"He's a smart guy," said 13th-year veteran safety Darren Sharper. "The fact that he started as long as he did at Ohio State, you know he's a smart guy. So he'll be fine with the adjustments."

Both Gay and Sharper -- who played alongside another physical former Ohio State cornerback, Antoine Winfield, in Minnesota -- said it's more important than ever for teams to have physical cornerbacks these days. So many receivers are getting bigger, and so many tight ends are getting faster throughout the league.

Jenkins did experience a little bit of rookie hazing on Saturday morning, but he said it wasn't too bad.

"They make the rookies tell jokes before meetings," said Jenkins, who said his joke was too long to get into, but said he delivered. "Yeah, it was a good joke."

Once he finally got on the field, Jenkins was in his comfort zone.

Compared to what he's been doing the past week, he said football is the easy part.

"(My hardest exam) was probably the forensic science," Jenkins said. "I mean, football is football. They're not reinventing the wheel. But forensic science is a whole different thing."

Mike Triplett can be reached at mtriplett@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3405.